Warsaw…..and a lot of other stuff I needed to write about

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Wednesday, November 14th

Excitement last evening. Sat on the terrace enjoying the 2C and chilly breeze I noticed the security light was on at the rear of 2D, which normally means something is wandering around in the woods the other side of the fence. This was followed by very loud dry-leaf-crunching noises and then the security light at the rear of our building came on.

“Offspring! Quick! There’s something in the woods!” I cried. “Let’s take a look.”

Offspring, currently nine years old (and female) struggled to remove Beloved’s high heels that she had been trying on and we ran into her bedroom to catch the view from the window, which looks straight out on the woods. It’s a short distance from the back of our building to the woods. If an elephant parked its arse against our building we could easily jump down, scurry along its back and then jump off the head into the park. Not that we have many elephants around here, just saying.

We pulled up the blind and there under the glare of the security lighting was a [collective noun] of wild boar. Between 10-15 of them, females with children.

Having difficulty working out the correct noun. There are three options; singular, singularity or sounder but the first two might only refer to males and the latter might only apply if 12 or more animals, so I’m a bit stuck on what to call the group.

No matter. There they were cute as hell, especially the tiny ones grubbing around and trying to keep up with mum.

Other exciting news, I have a new character, Hagrid. Now, to be fair, I have seen Hagrid around before, she just never made it onto my list until now. Admittedly the wrong sex for Hagrid and quite a bit smaller, shorter certainly, but I guarantee if I did an ID parade and asked which one is Hagrid, you’d pick her. I think it’s the hair and the clothing.

Trying to work out what Hagrid’s role is. She may possibly be “head cleaner” as she struts with an authoritative air around Strangely Park whilst holding a brush and red plastic bucket. She was most recently seen cleaning the matwell of the entrance to Hemingway’s place this morning, the same as she was doing to our own matwell as I left for work yesterday.

Florence Nightingale was knocking on the door last evening. She delivered a notice of the results of recent votes by the residents. These things make tough reading but I think we agreed the accounts for last year and also to modernize the sewage pump system. She also wanted a signature on the next motion, that being to exclude the vertically divided building, 1D I think, from any planned maintenance schedule. This decision made on the basis that firstly, nobody is living there and secondly that whoever owns them is not paying their dues. For sure one half is owned by The Evil Empire. As mentioned before this is the one occasionally rented to French people. Last encounter we had with anyone there was when Anne-Marie was friends with Offspring but that was years ago now. There have been one other French family since then but that’s about it.

The right hand half still stands empty. This is the one where the owner built a funky conservatory that offended The Evil Empire’s desire for order. Imagine a giant glass cube tilted onto one of the angles and then slammed into the side of a house. That’s about how it is. Pity really because having peeked inside it might have been quite nice had it been finished off.

Not sure how excluding an Evil Empire building from the maintenance schedule is going to help détente, especially as she seemed to be quite upbeat about them paying their bills recently but lets see how that pans out.

Lots of natter-natter of electric drills today. Some from Hemingway’s garage, causing him to bring the MG out and cover it up yet again with tarps and straps. Some also from what sounds like the apartment that shares the first floor with ours. This has been empty since we arrived, which was jolly useful when we were completely blocking the entrance with all our stuff during our renovation. We heard a while back that it had been bought by the CEO of a famous coffee chain but no signs of life. Perhaps they are getting ready to move in? I’m thinking a huge neighbourly welcome from us might secure free beans for life!

Problems with the sporty Mercedes it seems, the one with the personalized number “WOW SLK”. Someone has the hood up and was tinkering followed by driving round and round our mini roundabout and then more tinkering. Doesn’t look good and clearly trying to save on Mercedes dealer repair bills. This is owned by one of the Unknowns, people who live here who we don’t know and rarely see. I think from the far side of 2D, probably neighbours of the Fitnesses.

We looked at a place on that side many years ago when we first found this place and were looking to rent something. Palpatine, as I recall, showed us around the place on the first floor but it was too expensive at the time. Very nice aspect as it looks out onto the trees with no building nearby but very limited light. The current owners / renters have installed a light that shines up the big tree there. That looks good even from here when the sun goes down but they don’t use it all the time. Lighting up the trees is a bit of a thing here.